Two weeks ago I traveled to San Francisco to address the World Future Society
http://www.wfs.org/wfs on how the millennial
star of 2000 is taking millions beyond human understanding.

While most futurists now take a "beyond 2000" view of change and
societal transformation, the subject of the millennium repeatedly came up
in workshops, such as: "The Myths of the Millennium," by Stanley
Krippner of the Saybrook Institute.

Speaking of overaching societal myths, Peter Schwartz opened the conference
with a dazzling visualized address called "The Long Boom." He
projects over the next 25 years a new ethos of societal openess combined
with fundamental technological change (personal computers, telecommunications,
biotechnology, nanotechnology and alternative energy) will create a global
economic boom on a scale never before experienced.

Schwartz's address, which also appeared in Wired Magzine recently, is a
must readhttp://www.wired.com/wired/5.07/longboom.html
if you are interested in how the prevailing myth of the West, "The
Great March of Progress," might fare against counter myths, both apocalyptic
or utopian, as we enter the 21st century.

Next year's World Future Society conference is entitled, "FutureQuest:
Strategies for a New Millennium," July 19-21, 1998, in Chicago. Mark
your calendar.

News from the Field:"Here is the
latest news on year 2000 efforts."TIME CAPSULE KIT HITS THE MARKET
Millennium Celebrations Inc. m2000celeb@aol.com
of Chicago has just released a Millennium Time Capsule which allows
personal or family legacy items to be sealed and stored against the elements
"for decades, if not for another millennium." The kit retails
for $59.95.

In a bid to reach the consumer market, the time capsule is created from
commercial grade PVC material and offers an effective alternative to more
expensive manufactured metal containers. When assembled the cylinder is
14 inches in length by 3 in diameter. The kit also comes with full instructions,
certificates of origin and adhesive to assure a water-tight seal.

Recommend memorabilia to archive includes photographs, audio or video on
zip drives, biographies of your immediate family and you expectations or
aspirations for the next 20 to 50 years.

Millennium Celebrations, Inc. was formed in 1994 to help people create their
own One Magic Moment in time. To learn more about the MTC2000
kit, or how to send "a message to the future" check out the millennial
site: http://www.2000celebration.comROME EXPECTS 21 MILLION PILGRIMS
Vatican City--The Great Jubilee 2000 Committee joined its Roman counterpart
earlier this week to present their joint plans to welcome pilgrims to Rome
during the year 2000.

According to statistics just released, church and city officials expect
21.2 million visitors in Rome and the Vatican for the year 2000. This is
more than double the present peak of 10 million tourists who visit Rome
each year.

By the Jubilee Year, officials expect a capacity of 200,000 beds each day
through various hotels, boarding houses and religious institutes.

Luigi Zanda of the Roman Jubilee Agency pointed out that "there are
only 879 days until the opening of the Jubilee." He outlined areas
of cooperation between the Vatican and Rome, including the establishment
of information centers for pilgrims, joint projects for security, health
and other critical areas, such as training volunteers.

In conclusion, Archbishop Sebastiani emphasized that the Jubilee goes beyond
religious tourism, "it is a matter of true and proper pilgrimage. It
is a religious act." The Catholic tradition of celebrating a century's
end as a Holy Year began 700 years ago. Source: VIS via CINJUB. Talk from the Forum: "Here is a recap
of recent conversations"APOCALYPSE WOW!: A MEMOIR FOR THE END OF TIME
On June 30th, Dereck Daschke
posted to Talk 2000 a review of the playful book, Apocalypse Wow!: A
Memoir for the End of Time (Simon & Schuster, 1997, ISBN: 0-684-83649-1),
by James Finn Garner. Garner is the author of the multi-million-copy selling
Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. In this book, he focuses his
gift of satire and crystalline wit on the approaching millennium. Here is
Daschke's review:

Shortly after a brief mention of Garner's new book on this list, I had the
good fortune to catch him at a personal appearance in Chicago. I agree with
Jay: This book and Garner's type of humor is sorely needed in our day-to-day
hashing out of millennial events and their portents.

Apocalypse Wow! is successful on two levels. First, and most important,
it is as funny as all get out. (It's as good as a Dave Barry book, which
for me is among the highest of literary praise.) In the introduction he
offers a "Doomsday Final Exam" to "Test Your End-Times IQ!!"
As options to the question, "What are the names of the Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse?" he offers:

As in any good satire, where he is reporting the facts as they are and where
he's making up stuff as it could be is not always obvious. In his chapter
on the 11th century Irish bishop St. Malachy, who had a vision of all the
future popes, each with his own identifying motto, Garner "reproduces"
the epitaph that Malachy envisioned. These pithy phrases, the author says,
are "the equivalent of reading descriptions in a high school yearbook
("Pope with the Sunniest Smile," "Pope Most Likely to Succeed,"
"Homecoming Pope," etc.).

"The predictions for the 20th-century popes are stunningly accurate,"
writes Garner. "The motto for Pius XI, who cut a deal with Mussolini
and was given the area of Vatican City in return, was 'Fides Intrepida'
-- 'Start printing postage stamps.'"

What's of interest to millennialists is that the list seems to end two Popes
after the current one. Unless it is the current one. Or, as Garner says
throughout the book to sum up a confusing or contradictory set of ideas,
something like that. Or not. Garner's approach to his material, as he stated
in his personal appearance, is to believe everything he reads.

It's cheaper, easier, and quicker than getting a Divinity degree (something
I should have thought of six years ago), and the new millennium is only
a few years off. To paraphrase Paul Ricoeur's "hermeneutics of suspicion,"
Garner practices the "hermeneutics of gullibility".

Practically speaking, however, this attitude allows his book to be successful
not just as a humorous "look at life at the end of the millennium"
but also as a concise, incisive guide to millenarian thinking.

He manages to summarize, historicize, and critique pretty much every figure,
group, text, and idea that factors into millennial consciousness at this
point. In less than 200 pages, he covers the year 999, UFOs, the Bible,
talk radio, the papacy, Nostradamus, the New Age, astrology and other types
of divination, Jehovah's Witnesses, Edward Cayce, pyramids, and MUCH MUCH
MORE!.

Cleverly, he explores many of these as he "documents" his own
personal journey in seeking out millennial insights by these tried-and-true
phenomena, including having his Tarot read with a "90210" deck
and keeping a channeling journal, in which, at one point, he channels a
scene from "Gone with the Wind" as Butterfly McQueen.

While laying out the basic millenarian argument behind any of the above,
he will also slyly point out glaring errors in its claims to historical
accuracy, uniqueness, or obvious significance. For example, regarding the
story of Europeans on New Year's, 999a.d. gathering to watch the clocks
on the church towers chime midnight and, presumably, the End of Time, Garner
asks, "Could . . . the faithful watch the clock on the church steeple
tick off to midnight if the first mechanical clocks weren't invented until
the late 13th century? And which New Year's Eve would people be celebrating,
anyway?"

He goes on to list different New Year's markers for Rome, Florence, Venice,
France, England (for which there were three options), the Eastern Empire
(two), and Armenia. But for religious and, as Garner himself acknowledges,
current commercial concerns, why quibble about history when there's so much
to look forward to in the future? Or something like that. Or not.

Apocalypse Wow! is smart, delightful, and well-researched from, well,
Beginning to End. It's a perfect forum for the author of Politically
Correct Bedtime Stories. Part of the fun is the gonzo illustrations
and asides peppering the book, including the running experimentation with
anagrams on the names in the book. If I have any complaint on this piece
of work, it is this: He beat me to it.

New Millennial Sites: "Here are
new sites in cyberspace"THE MILLENNIUM COMMISSION:Helping U.K. celebrate the millennium
Supported by the national U.K. lottery, the Millennium Commission has awarded
more than 508 million sterling pounds to various landmark projects in the
U.K. to celebrate the start of the third millennium. The Millennium Commission
Web Site gives information on the capitol projects supported by the Commission
and insights into the national millennium experience.http://www.millennium.gov.ukTHE ALIEN AUTOPSYFake or Fiction?
[Charles Cameron
writes:] The Truly Dangerous Company website drew a lot of attention when
it hosted this expert critique of the "Alien Autopsy" movie by
a special effects wizard. The site includes "How To Make An Alien:
The step-by-step handbook" -- which was reprinted by both The Skeptical
Inquirer and UFO Times! -- "Autopsy Bleeps and Blunders", "Autopsy
Face-Off: Dueling Alien Autopsies!", a "Faked-Or-Fiction FAQ",
and more.http://www.trudang.com/autopsy.htmlContact Information: "Your link to
the third millennium"